Stripped down, Costello is special

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You'd have to be a pretty serious Elvis Costello fan to appreciate just how special his performance was Tuesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Frankly, it seems you'd need to have been that simply to have scored one of 750 tickets, or at least have a really good friend who's a Barclay subscriber who doesn't know “Imperial Bedroom” from Imperial Highway and was willing to sell his seat.

Costello, who should be ranked high on any plausible list of the greatest songwriters of all time, has rarely played Orange County, and almost always in Irvine, apart from a lone Pacific gig in 1991. He used to come to “the Kingdom of Orange,” as he put it Tuesday, quite regularly in the '80s – even attracted thousands to Irvine Meadows three summers in a row back when “Everyday I Write the Book” landed him on MTV. But he hasn't been back to the Safest City in California in nine years, when he opened for Neil Young at what's now Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, and he hasn't headlined a show in Orange County since he and the Attractions last gave it a go in 1994.

The question is: Did everyone who leapt at the chance for an intimate encounter get what they came for? The answer may be no in a good many cases, particularly subscriber types who might have been hoping for more “hits” on the order of those that bookended this set, “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” and “Alison,” or who don't find the nakedness of such a richly distinctive voice quite so riveting.

Costello was certainly a vocal powerhouse at many points in the performance, his simmering samba feel for the standard “All or Nothing at All” bubbling from tender whispers to rousing romance, his wail mighty like a rose for the finish of “Veronica.” At other times, however, you could notice the toll a weeklong one-man tour can take on a singer, often detectable during his best-known tunes. “Accidents Will Happen” was especially ragged, “Red Shoes” too rushed, and at the end of “Everyday,” superbly recast in a finger-picked Ron Sexsmith mold, his falsetto flat-out failed him.

Yet those fissures – along with a feeling during scarcely attempted covers (like Dylan's “When I Paint My Masterpiece”) and unreleased material (the powerful “For More Tears”) that perhaps Costello was too loosely rehearsed – grew increasingly fascinating as this two-hour show wore on. When supported by the Imposters, the cracks in Costello's voice can get covered by the passion of the playing. Stripped bare, you could hear him warts and all.

Mesmerizing as that was in the moment – never more so than during the final encore – I foolishly awaited something more, bowled over by his literal nearness but not entirely aware (until later) just how unique much of this performance was.

In Irvine, most gems were hard to recognize – like “Poison Moon,” a mid-'70s bedroom demo he had performed only a half-dozen times before Tuesday, or the marvelous and equally rare “Ghost Train,” teenage Declan McManus' view of fading showbiz stars. Along with “Suit of Lights” in the first encore, that last one served as a means to tell tales of his dear departed dad, just as “Veronica” gave him room to recollect how his grandmother “hated Al Jolson for putting my grandfather out of business” when talkies left silent-movie musicians jobless.

It was a sentimental excursion to be sure, despite show-stopping moments that seemed to break from the theme, like the loop-building feedback fantasia he brought to a radical handling of “Watching the Detectives.”

But nothing compared to the finale. Sitting down once more stage-left, the dapper entertainer pulled out some sheet music he acquired the week before, doffed his trademark glasses (“the way very few people ever see me,” he admitted) so he could follow the changes, and indulged a hesitant but lovely reading of “I Know Why (And So Do You),” an oldie he's apparently played only once before.

Then, stepping to the front of the Barclay stage, ahead of his mic and monitors, Costello went completely unplugged to perform “Alison,” the room so still you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Time stood still for a gripping moment, many of us undoubtedly feeling like Costello had just gotten up in our living room to sing his most famous song.

Who else of his caliber but maybe Springsteen would dare such an astonishing move? Like the rest of his performance, only magnified hundredfold, it was spellbinding – and ended much too soon.

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